She knew why he kept her close, and she was desperately, stupidly thankful. Everyone knew her as one of the King’s bloodbound, as the friend—or mistress—of Erec d’Anjou. By making sure that everyone saw her as his trusted bodyguard, Armand was freeing her of suspicion. Nobody knew exactly what she had done the night of the summer solstice—neither she nor Armand had provided many details—but everyone knew that she had helped the saint to vanquish his foes.
Unlike all the other bloodbound, she would be loved forever after. It was a debt she could never repay.
One of the many, many debts.
Something held Armand back from speaking to her during the few, scattered moments when they were alone together. Rachelle didn’t speak either, because she didn’t have the right.
She’d had his love, if it had really been love. He had kissed her and said that he loved her, but he had thought he would be dead within days. It had been impossible for him to have any intention of sharing his life with her. And since then, she had thrown him away, killed his followers, slept with the man who had maimed him—and saved his life and mattered enough to be used as a hostage against him, but that wasn’t love. Exactly. Maybe.
Now Armand was not only going to live, he was the favorite half brother of the new king. He could have anything that he wanted, and if he didn’t want Rachelle . . . after the way she had treated him, it was only fair.
A lot of things were fair: the strange, uneasy looks that she got from most people in the Château, who didn’t know whether to fear or honor her. The dull heaviness and infuriating weakness of her body, now that she was fully human again. The loneliness of standing next to Armand and saying nothing.
Just because things were fair, didn’t make them easy.
Amélie went home on the second day. Rachelle wanted to beg her to stay, but she couldn’t, because she had held Amélie when she woke up sobbing the night before. She deserved a chance to go home to her mother.
“I am not leaving you forever and ever,” said Amélie, glowering as she fussed with the clothes in her trunk. “Even if you try to leave me. I will hunt you down and find you.” She snapped the lid of the trunk down. “I can do it. You’re not so much stronger than me, now. So stop looking that way.”
Rachelle choked on a laugh. “You were always stronger.”
“You,” said Amélie, “were always foolish enough to think that mattered.” For a few moments, she studied Rachelle, her mouth puckered. “Don’t leave me,” she said quietly. “Promise you’ll come visit.”
Rachelle let out a shaky breath. Amélie’s determination was like solid ground beneath her feet after she’d spent days falling.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come, I promise.”
Amélie grinned and pulled her into an embrace.
“I wouldn’t be here without you,” Rachelle said when Amélie released her. “You know that, don’t you? I would have given up and lost myself to the Forest years ago.”
“I think you’re underestimating yourself,” said Amélie.
“No,” said Rachelle. “I’m not. That night we met—when I was too late to save your father, I thought that at least I got to save you. But it was really you who saved me.”
Amélie smiled at her. She looked fragile and beautiful and terribly strong. “Thank you,” she said.
The evening after Amélie left, Rachelle went out running in the gardens. The Château’s bells had just finished ringing nine o’clock, and yet the sun was still lingering at the horizon. Rachelle had never imagined the world could be so full of light.
She had never imagined, either, what it would be like to run as a human.
It was still a delight. The air was still cool and sweet in her throat, even if it was not the magical, inhuman sweetness of the Great Forest. The pounding of her heart was like a drug. But soon—so very soon—her legs burned and her chest ached. She had to lean against a tree, gasping for breath. Sweat slid down her back.
Once she could have run forever. Once the wound on her palm would have healed in minutes instead of still being a scabbed mess two days later that ached and stung when she flexed her hand.
She was grateful—so very, very grateful—to be human again. To be free. And yet she missed the strength and speed and grace she’d had as a bloodbound. She missed them bitterly.
A breeze stirred against her face. She looked up.
In the spaces between the trees, other phantom trees stretched out their translucent branches, like indentations in the air.
The breeze stirred again. It sounded like it was laughing to itself. Dimly, between the shadows of the trees, she saw something that looked like a white deer with red eyes. A woodspawn.
She blinked, and the vision was gone. She was the most alien thing among the trees once more.
But the song of the wind still trembled in her blood. The Forest had been here—it was still here, right now, even if she couldn’t see it. Though the Devourer had gone, the Great Forest was living still. And it no longer had the same feeling of heartless menace as it had before.
She supposed it made sense. The Devourer did not seem like a creature that could create anything, much less the terrible beauty of the Great Forest.
Uncounted ages ago—not just before the daylight, but before the Devourer swallowed the sun and moon to begin with, before it enmeshed itself in the human world at all—the Great Forest had been standing. How it must have delighted the people who lived then. And then the Devourer took it from them.
Now, perhaps, they would have it back.
Erec, you fool, she thought. There was a whole world waiting for us.
And there, surrounded by the shadow of the Forest that could have been, that would be now—dark but no longer so dreadful—she cried for Erec.
Eventually she dried her eyes. She stood and walked back toward the Château, out of the trees.
Back toward Armand. He stood by one of the fountains, staring at the falling water that glittered in the sunset light.
Her heart thudded. She meant to slip past him silently, but then he looked up at her and said, “Rachelle.”
And she couldn’t move. She could only stare at him, drinking in the curve of his cheek, the line of his mouth, wishing that he was still hers to touch.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Well. I’m human. And nobody seems to want me executed.”
He wasn’t happy. She could tell that from the way he had planted himself, shoulders braced, but she couldn’t read anything on his face. That was what hurt most of all, that he was hiding from her.
“I killed you,” he said suddenly. “I’m—really very sorry.”
It was the last thing she had expected him to say.
“You didn’t kill me, you killed the Devourer inside of me,” she said after a moment. “Isn’t that what you said at the salon?”
He choked out a small laugh, his face coming alive again. “I did. But. That was when I thought I couldn’t possibly be the one holding the blade. I spent so much time pretending to be a saint, I think I fooled myself as well.”
“It’s true now, isn’t it?” said Rachelle. “You were ready to die twice to stop the Devourer. You helped save Gévaudan.”
“I did everything wrong,” he said. “Those men who helped in the coup, they trusted me to lead them, and I ruined our chances—”
“I was the one who killed them. Some of them.” Rachelle’s heart thudded when she said the words, and for a moment she couldn’t look at him.
When she dared a glance, he was looking annoyed. “You thought we were planning to slaughter you,” he said. “Because I didn’t tell you, because I couldn’t make up my mind if you knew what the forestborn were planning or not.”
“It was a reasonable suspicion,” said Rachelle.
“And then I let them raise the Forest when they threatened you. And then I killed you. I’m sorry.”
“You do realize,” said Rachelle, “that you just apologize
d for saving my life and for ending it?”
His mouth curved wryly.
She took a step closer. “It’s true. You did wrong, and you should have died first. But I forgive you for it. I’ve heard that God will too.”
He laughed then, sudden and raw and real. “You’re not going to let me forget anything I said, are you?”
“Never.” Her mouth curved up as her eyes met his, and it felt right, it felt like—
Why did she feel as if they had a long history of easy happiness between them? They had never been anything but enemies or else uneasy allies. Jailer and prisoner, sinner and saint. The kisses in between had hardly changed a thing.
“I’m not sorry I lied to you about the offering,” she said.
“That’s good,” said Armand, “because I still don’t forgive you for it.” Abruptly his lips pressed together in a flat line. After a moment he went, his voice expressionless, “But that doesn’t matter anymore. If you feel like you owe me something . . . you don’t. You can leave.”
She’d expected the words, but they still hit her like a kick to the chest. Armand wasn’t looking at her anymore; he’d started to angle his body away, his head bent down to stare at the grass. As if he didn’t want to be any closer to her than he had to be.
Then she realized how utterly lonely he looked.
“What are you doing now?” she asked.
He did look up at her then, and smiled faintly. “Do you know, I haven’t the faintest idea. For six months, I was a dead man walking. I don’t remember what it was like to have a future.”
“I don’t either,” said Rachelle.
There was another moment of silence, but this one wasn’t quite so awkward. Then Armand drew a breath. “Rachelle,” he said. “I know—what was between us—we were about to die. We didn’t make any promises. If you want to leave, you have every right. And I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself now. But I would like you to be there while I find out.”
The words were exactly what she’d wanted to hear him say, ever since she’d woken up in his arms. And yet now—
“The Forest’s still alive,” she said. “I saw it, just now.”
Armand didn’t even blink at the change of subject. “I know.”
“Do you still see it all the time?” She was horrified to realize that she hadn’t even thought about him.
He shook his head. “Just sometimes. But enough.” He paused. “It’s different now. I almost don’t hate it.”
“Oh.” She stared at the water. “I saw it for a moment today. I missed it so much. And then I cried for Erec.”
Armand was silent. She didn’t dare look at him.
“I haven’t told anyone else this, but I think you deserve to know.” Rachelle drew a breath. “Erec isn’t just dead. He’s worse than dead. He went with me into the stomach of the Devourer, and he chose to stay there for all eternity.” She paused. “I tried to save him. I am sorry for all I did with him, you have no idea how much—and you have no idea how much I hate him, either—but I did want to save him. I still wish I could have.”
“I guessed as much,” said Armand after a moment.
She finally looked at him. “You’re not angry?”
He gave her a wry smile. “Well, I did ask you not to kill him.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He sighed. “For the last six months, every moment of every day, I could feel the Devourer sleeping in the back of my mind. There were some mornings I woke up and I could barely breathe for his hunger and despair. I know what fate d’Anjou chose. I can’t wish that on anyone. Other, very painful fates, maybe. But not that one.”
“I wished it on myself, sometimes,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair that I was spared.”
“It seems perfectly fair to me,” he said. “Mind you, I am biased.”
“What I’m trying to tell you,” said Rachelle, “is that I’m not . . . I haven’t stopped being . . . I don’t know what I am.”
“I wake up some mornings and for a moment I can’t tell if I’m the only one inside my head,” said Armand. “I don’t think either of us knows what we are.”
Rachelle looked at him. She knew she could leave. She could go back to Rocamadour and live with Amélie and maybe find some peace.
She had never, in her whole life, been satisfied with peace.
The back of his neck was warm under her fingers as she pulled him into a kiss.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll stay. As long as you hold on to me. Yes.”
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Acknowledgments
There are a lot of ways that this book was nearly never finished, and so there are a lot of people to thank for its existence.
My agent, Hannah Bowman, has been an unfailing source of support from the first moment I said, “Wouldn’t it be cool to combine Little Red Riding Hood and The Girl With No Hands?” It’s difficult to imagine what this book would have been like without her. Thank you!
I would also like to thank my two editors: Sara Sargent, who worked with me on the difficult early stages, and Kristin Daly Rens, who helped bring the project to completion. The entire HarperCollins team has continued to be great, and once again, thanks to Erin Fitzsimmons for an astounding cover.
Bethany Powell, Natalie Parker, Brendan Hodge, and Marieke Nijkamp all read various drafts of the novel and provided valuable feedback.
There are many people whom I asked for advice or help of various kinds while writing this book, and any attempt to name them will surely miss somebody—but Sherwood Smith, Stephen Maddux, Adam Posadas, Stephanie Oakes, Mindy Rhiger, and Corinne Duyvis all responded very kindly to a very desperate author.
Gévaudan is almost entirely unlike seventeenth-century France (and I can only beg the forgiveness of any historians who have read this far), but I do owe the period a debt of inspiration, and I would like to acknowledge The Splendid Century by W. H. Lewis, Princesse of Versailles by Charles Elliott, and Versailles: A Biography of a Palace by Tony Spawforth as being particularly helpful. (Also: the letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz.)
Two major artistic inspirations were Tim Powers’s short story “The Hour of Babel” and Patricia A. McKillip’s novel The Alphabet of Thorn. Less major, but no less delectable, was the Old Norse poem Völundarkviða. All three works are marvelous, and you should try them.
I suspect it is not easy to be friends with a writer under deadline. Sasha Decker, Tia Corrales, and Megan Lorance all deserve ten thousand thanks for the best friends that any writer could hope to have.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who read my first novel, Cruel Beauty. Writing has always been my dream, and you helped it come true. Thanks!
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About the Author
ROSAMUND HODGE is also the author of Cruel Beauty. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with seven toy cats and a plush Cthulhu. Visit her online at www.rosamundhodge.net.
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Also by Rosamund Hodge
Cruel Beauty
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Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
CRIMSON BOUND. Copyright © 2015 by Rosamund Hodge. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down
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